Wizard Of Rentoro

Battle was joined now, and there was no more reason to be quiet. Blade roared out his orders in a voice that could be heard clear across the square. «Wolves in the palace! The duke has betrayed us. Mounted guards-back, and block the street. Get the tar barrels into a line and light them!»

His arms danced wildly. «You-ride to Lord Zemun. Tell him to get the torches lit and man the walls.

«You-ride back to the men coming up behind us. Send them around to block all the streets leading out from the palace. Have them use wagons, furniture, barrels, tear up the cobblestones if they have to. We've got to surround the palace and keep it surrounded!»

More bolts sailed down from the gate to punctuate Blade's remarks. One struck a guard in the arm, nearly knocking him out of his saddle. He cried out, but with surprise and rage more than pain.

«You, you, you-ride through the streets and wake up the people. Tell them the Wolves are in the city and must be stopped. Tell them to turn out, block the streets, light torches and be ready to fight for their lives.» Blade's mind went back to Winston Churchill's call of 1940, when Britain faced a German invasion. «Remember, you can always take one with you.»

The messengers clattered off into the darkness on their various missions, pursued by more bolts from the gate. The rest dismounted, some to lead away the heudas, others to unload the tar barrels and pile them across the street. Still others broke down the doors of nearby houses and started dragging furniture out into the street to add to the barricade. At first men shouted angrily at the invasion of their homes. Then they heard what was happening and came swarming out to join the mounted guards at the barricade.

They came in their nightclothes or in no clothes at all. Some came with axes and spears, others with improvised clubs, chair legs, or even stones. Some climbed up to top-floor windows and got ready to throw things down on the heads of the Wolves. None of them seemed to have any idea of how to fight a battle except killing all the Wolves they could find. Blade had seldom commanded a stranger or more ragged army, but he'd never commanded one as eager to fight!

Now Blade could hear a growing uproar behind the walls of the palace. Heudas stamped and cried out, men shouted orders, a rumble of voices rose and fell. The Wolves were gathering there in strength, but they seemed to be taking their time about coming out to attack. Blade wondered if they despised the Morinans that much. Surely they could see the barricades rising all around the palace! Did they think they had all night?

Then silence fell behind the palace walls. In the next moment the main gate crashed open. In the moment after that what seemed like a thousand Wolves came charging out of the palace on their heudas.

At the head of the column was a mass of leaders in full armor, riding almost shoulder to shoulder, their lances raised, pe

The torch fell, the tar blazed up, and a wall of flame rose between Blade and the charging Wolves. He dashed back for the cover of the barricade, vaulted it, and shouted to his men. «Men with spears and lances-line up and hold them out in front of you. The rest-gather on the flanks and the rear. No prisoners!»

Then the Wolves reached the wall of flame, and Blade stopped shouting because he could no longer make himself heard.

The Wolves tried hard to rein in and stay out of the flames. But the first rank, the second, and some of the third were too close, and the sheer weight of their comrades behind them pushed them into the fire. Men and heudas came down like falling trees, and all the screams blended together into one ghastly uproar.

Blade saw a Wolf leader plunge to the ground at his feet and start to get up. Then a pain-maddened heuda reared above him and brought both front hooves down on his chest The armor caved in like tinfoil and the man died writhing and gasping, unable to cry out.

Another Wolf landed face down in the thickest of the burning tar. By some miracle he got to his feet and came lurching toward Blade, flames shooting out from the chinks of his armor as the tar ate away his flesh, screaming with every step he took. Three spears jabbed the man in the chest, knocking him over. Blade knelt over the fallen man and thrust his dagger through the eyes-lit of the helmet to end the screaming.

A man in a nightshirt seemed to go mad, rushing past the line of spears waving an ax. His clothing caught fire, but he kept on, straight into the middle of the Wolves. «For Magra, for Magra, for Magra!» he howled, as the flames charred his flesh and the Wolves' swords bit into it. Then his ax came down, sweeping a man-at-arms out of the saddle, and both fell dead. Magra was avenged.

Dead or dying men and heudas piled up along the wall of flame, writhing and twisting, filling the air with screams and the overpowering stench of burning flesh. A few of the men-at-arms unlimbered crossbows and sent stray bolts whistling into the ranks of the defenders. The archers were shooting blind, though, and did little damage.

At last the bodies piled up high enough to make a clear path through the flames at one end. The Wolves turned toward it, found they could not force their heudas over the bodies, drew back, and milled around, apparently uncertain what to do next. Blade wished he had about fifty archers, and thought of sending a message to ask for some from the walls. He decided against it. The Wolves here made a tempting target but it was still too soon to risk stripping the walls.

As he watched the Wolves milling around, a suspicion grew in Blade's mind and slowly turned into a certainty. The Wizard was not here. Perhaps he was not in the besieging army at all, but certainly he was nowhere within sight of this force of Wolves. He was not seeing what was going on, either by view-ball or with his own eyes. So he could not give them any orders. Without the orders they'd always had from their master, the orders that had so often saved them from having to think for themselves, the Wolf leaders could not lead. Without the Wizard the Wolves might not be toothless, but they certainly seemed witless. They could march, burn a countryside, set up a siege camp. They could not fight a pitched battle against opponents who fought back, thought for themselves, and could spring sudden surprises!

It was hard for Blade to believe anything else. The Wizard had fought in many battles, or at least knew how they should be fought. If he'd been giving orders to these Wolves, they would not have waited so long to come out of the palace. They would not have charged blindly straight at the wall of flame and a barricade that might conceal anything. They would not be milling around now like a flock of sheep without a leader.

Morina was going to win.

«Morina will win!» Blade roared. «Morina will win! The Wizard does not lead the Wolves, and they ca

«Stand!»

«Kill the Wolves!»

«This is the night of our freedom!»

The cries rose behind Blade, until they were as loud as the screams had been. The surviving Wolf leaders started scrambling down from their heudas, shouting to the men-at-arms to do the same. Holding their lances out in front of them like pikes, the leaders began crowding across the piled bodies, the men-at-arms behind them.

Now the Wolves' archers could no longer fire without risk of hitting their own comrades. A messenger ran up to Blade and shouted in his ear. The other streets were all barricaded; did the Lord Blade wish some of the men there to come around to meet the Wolves here?